I feel I should be putting on my best dress and having cake today. Just celebrating in some way. In book four, NOT A RHODE ISLAND CLUE – out in early 2014, today is a big day. Today is the day Kevin and Joseph get married. When I am plotting the books out, I use a calendar so I don’t forget certain things. Well I do now. In SOCIAL INSECURITY there was a hurricane and I had to go back and research the dates and to avoid that kind of thing in the future, I started putting things in my Outlook calendar. If something big happens in the world, I put it in the calendar since my books take place in a definite time and place. It cuts down on research. For example, in the first book a character mentions a Red Sox vs Yankees game. I had to go back and see did they actually play on that day and at what time. Fortunately they did so I didn’t have to change that but I did have to research it. The day of the Boston Bombing I noted it in the calendar. Because it would be just like me to have the characters take a shopping trip to 
Boston on that day. Because I am that bad at remembering dates. I have to look up the date I got married every single year as I know the time is rolling around. So when they legalized same sex marriage in RI, I put the date in my calendar and then I looked up when the next WaterFire would be. Because of course Kevin proposes on a gondola. During WaterFire. With a flash mob on shore doing Beyonce. Come on, this is Kevin, we expect no less!! Anyway, same sex marriage went into effect August 1st so of course the big wedding was scheduled for the first Saturday after that. So my Outlook gave me a little pop up and I’m feeling like I should be having a piece of wedding cake today.
So you are asking yourself why, if I know what is happening in book four, isn’t book two out? Funny story. I am doing a bit of a rewrite to kill off a character. There is one real person as a character in the first book. I had planned to keep him through the entire series. It is something we have had a bit of fun with. People who know me and who know him find it a bit odd we are friends. (We fight a lot.) I am as liberal and Type A as they come and he is not. He’s a bit lazy and very conservative and frankly a racist and a homophobe. So he is actually a good character for my book – just the opposite of all the other characters. You need somebody for people to hate. Well. His boss read my book. It was a real eye opener for him. He is too soft hearted to fire this person/my character but he did call my husband, who also works for him, and said he wants that character killed off and out of the book!!! Hey, the guy puts a nice piece of change in our pockets and owns the beautiful waterfront condo I live in at a very reduced cost. So I am doing a rewrite and killing a character. Who? If you read the first book you know who I am talking about. And if you haven’t read it, well go buy the book! The second one will be out soon and the third – which needs no changes (yet anyway) – before the end of the year.
Kate Eileen Shannon 
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